Robot chess player breaks 7-year-old boy's finger at tournament in Russia

A robotic chess player broke a 7-year-old boy's finger during a game they played as part of a tournament in Russia. The robot - essentially a robotic arm - had been deployed by the organizers of the Moscow Chess Open to take on participants in 3-player simultaneous matches.

The president of the Russian Chess Federation, Sergey Lazarev, weighed in on the matter, stating the following:

The robot broke the kid's finger, which of course is terribly bad. We rented the robot after it was tested many times and for a long time by experts in various situations. But it seems that its administrators overlooked something. The child made a move and then the robot had to be given time to respond, but the child was in a hurry and the robot grabbed his hand. We as a Federation have no responsibility or control over the robot.

So far no explanation has been given by the robot's administrators, and it's certainly not the first time a bot's functionality has been made public, usually because they don't take into account some safety parameters when used around people. Robots used in industries usually do not see the world around them and follow predetermined paths - procedures to carry out their work. Generally, if a human is in their way, then they don't even realize their existence and obviously the danger increases.

In the case of this chess robot, the developers designed it simply to recognize and move pieces, not to perceive the presence of a human hand in its area of ​​responsibility. The accident could have been avoided if a camera or even a motion recognition sensor had been added above the chessboard.

For the record, the kid is in good health and even continued to play in the tournament the next day.